


2 Inches Apart

by MarzgaPerez



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Baking, F/M, Fluff and Angst, It’s Complicated, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Now I’m Craving Cookies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarzgaPerez/pseuds/MarzgaPerez
Summary: Katniss is having trouble making cookies, so Peeta lends a hand.Set after the first Hunger Games and before the Victory Tour.





	2 Inches Apart

The front part of the house was dark, so Peeta walked around to the side door, hoping to find Mrs. Everdeen and give her the pitcher she’d asked to borrow the day before. Much to his dismay - or was it delight - he realized that Katniss was the one busying herself in the kitchen. He knew she was frustrated with something by the way her brow was furrowed.

Peeta scolded himself for pausing outside of the window and letting his eyes linger on her for longer than he should have.

 _Enough already._ He’d made a promise to himself to cease with the lurking-in-the-shadows routine. It only made Katniss uncomfortable and continued to widen the gap between them. A gap that Peeta had been trying to close ever since they returned from the Games.

Living right across from one another wasn’t helping the situation. It merely served as a reminder that they were bound together by circumstances and not by choice. He sometimes wondered if Katniss wished that she’d left him for dead. But there were other times that she’d smile at him in a certain way or seek him out for a moment of comfort, and Peeta held onto the possibility that maybe, just maybe they had a future together.

With sudden resolve, he marched up the steps and knocked on the door, perhaps louder than he had intended. There was a crash and the sound of Katniss cursing in _not a very ladylike manner_ as Effie would say.

Katniss came to the door and pulled back the curtain, her eyes lighting up with recognition - but not necessarily excitement - to see Peeta standing on the other side.

“Oh, hi there.” Her voice was pleasant enough, and Peeta waved at her awkwardly with his free hand while cradling the pitcher in his other hand.

“Hold on.” Katniss let the curtain fall back into place and disappeared into the room for a few seconds longer than Peeta would have expected. He drew in a sharp breath as soon as he heard her turning the door knob, awaiting whichever mood that she was in, although he would take whatever time with her that he could get.

She opened the door just wide enough to receive the pitcher. “Thanks, Peeta. I’ll give this to my mother when she and Prim get back from the market.”

“Okay, thanks. Tell her hello. And please give this to Prim.” He pulled a small bag of candy from his pocket and handed it to her.

“Will do. See you later, I guess.” As she started to back inside and close the door, Peeta stopped her.

“Katniss, wait. Why are you covered in flour?” It was actually her forehead and the tip of her nose, which he indicated by pointing towards her face.

“Dammit.” She huffed and sighed, using her fingertips to attempt to rid her skin of the white dust. Peeta tried to maintain a serious demeanor but couldn’t help the slight smile that inched out of the corner of his mouth.

“Peeta...since you’re here...”

Katniss nodded at him to come inside. The kitchen was a site to behold with opened bags of flour and sugar, piles of egg shells, containers of partially used butter, and several mixing bowls in various states of unclean.

“What are you-“

“I was trying to make cookies for Effie’s visit. But I’m not having any luck. I can’t get the right consistency for the dough, and I’m being so wasteful with these ingredients.”

He noted the despair in her eyes over this failed attempt at baking, although he knew that the despair came from a deeper place. Since the Games, ordinary tasks could sometimes be the most frustrating.

“Calm down. We can fix this.”

Peeta walked over to where she was standing and put his hands on her shoulders. Instead of tensing up or moving away, she relaxed into his touch, lifting her eyes to meet his. She almost looked relieved. “Thank you.”

“But I have to ask the obvious question...”

“Go ahead.” Dropping her chin, Katniss shifted to put a space between them, so Peeta moved his hands away from her shoulders, his fingertips still tingling from the brief contact.

“Why didn’t you ask me to make these for you?”

“Well, Peeta. I, um...”

“Tell me.”

“It’s just...well, sometimes...or most of the time, really...I feel like I’m taking advantage of you, of our...friendship...”

“That’s very considerate of you, but I thought we had agreed to help each other out. You hunt, which I’m terrible at, and I, well...bake.”

“I’m definitely not good at baking.” She shook her head in disgust and gestured towards a red ceramic bowl which appeared to contain a very hardened mass of cookie dough.

“Are you following a recipe of some kind?”

“Recipe? No. I was trying to remember how my mother does it. I’ve helped her a few times.”

“Well, all is not lost.” Peeta lifted the bowl from the counter and inspected it more closely. “This could come in handy for someone laying brick.”

“Peeta!” Katniss shrieked and swatted his arm with a hand towel that was nearby. “Be nice.”

“Always.” He smiled at her, his eyes dancing with slight mischief, like they did on the rare occasion when he realized he could do something to help her.

“Let’s clean up and start over.”

“Alright.”

They worked together to salvage whatever ingredients could still be used, and then Katniss watched Peeta in awe as he quickly worked his magic, creating a flaky, malleable dough, which he then started to break into small pieces and roll into tiny perfect balls.

“I should be able to help with this part.”

“Have at it.”

He placed the bowl between them and made sure she knew the right amount of dough to pinch off before rolling it into small spheres with the palms of her hands.

Once they had lined several cookie sheets with the balls of dough spaced evenly apart, Peeta opened the pre-heated oven door and placed them inside.

“These should be ready in about ten minutes.” He turned the timer on and then set to washing the dishes as Katniss began putting the remaining supplies away and wiping down the counter.

“Thanks so much, Peeta. I guess I wanted to do this on my own because I’m trying to find a distraction...so I don’t have to think about, well, you know...”

She joined him by the sink and surprised him by draping her arm around his waist. Because he welcomed any opportunity to have her close, he didn’t mind that she was probably hugging him out of a sense of obligation. But she didn’t let go right away. “You smell nice.”

He didn’t really know what to say or how to react to her sudden display of affection. “It’s probably the vanilla extract from the cookie dough.”

“Well...I like it.” She continued holding onto him, and he finally pulled her closer, the wisps from her thick braid tickling his nose.

“Katniss...”

“Yes?”

“Can we...?”

She seemed reluctant to move, knowing what he wanted from her. It was strange that he would be so bold, knowing that she was still tethered to Gale, but Katniss knew he needed to be reminded that everything that had happened between them wasn’t just his imagination.

She nodded slightly, and he kissed her neck gently, trailing his lips upwards to meet her mouth, his lips encircling hers hungrily, his yearning for her apparent. Peeta was almost certain that she wasn’t pretending, that she was actually returning the kiss.  _Wishful thinking._

The timer sounded, and he pulled away from her instantly, almost as if he had been conditioned by the sound of a bell, but more so because Peeta knew he had to stop before he got too carried away. After all, she had repaid the favor, and now it was time for him to go.

Katniss grabbed the oven mitts and smiled at him awkwardly, opening the oven and carefully removing the trays of golden brown cookies.

“These are perfect.”

“Anytime you want to bake, just let me know.” Peeta was moving towards the door to let himself out.

“Don’t you want to wait until they cool off and take some with you?”

“No, you enjoy them. Good-bye, Katniss.”

“Good-bye, Peeta.”

He waited until he was outside with the door closed behind him to lean into the side of the house, touching his fingers to his lips. It might be awhile before he’d have a chance to do that again with her. Or maybe she’d have a change of heart during the Victory Tour...


End file.
